Madrid 2 continued their winning streak in the development league with a comfortable 57 run victory over the Intellectuals at Bonalba on Saturday

Intellectuals won the toss and put Madrid into bat. Madrid batted well on the Bonala wicket and scored 192 for 9 off their quota of overs. For the Intellectuals Tanveer had an excellent bowling bagging 6 wickets for only a handful of runs.

Intellectuals chased the total required bravely but fell 57 runs short of victory, finally being bowled all out for 135 runs. Madrid took 18 points from the game to continue their 100% record whilst Intellectuals got 6 points from this home fixture.

Intellectuals struggled to get 10 men on the field for Saturday, draughting in Jose at the last minute! It was however a fine day for cricket, quite a breeze and some cloud which stopped everyone getting frazzled.

Intellectuals won the toss and put Madrid in to bat, this wasn’t tactical but because Tanveer had to be at work by 16:00.

Madrid started well! Intellectuals picked up a wicket in the 7th over Singh was caught behind of Tanveer Ahmed.

2 overs later Intellectuals were really cruising when the captain David was LBW of Tanveer once again. A 60 partnership from Sakma and Awan took Madrid over the hundred mark and the intellectuals felt the frustration of only having 10 men in the field.

Madrid’s middle order stayed strong with Marrow knocking up 41. Finally in the last 2 overs Tanveer finished a brilliant spell and cleared almost all of the Madrid tail bar 1. Tanveer finished on a very good 8-0-17-6.

Madrid 192 off 40 for 9 wickets

After tea Intellectuals opened optimistically with Tanveer and Rahul who managed to see off the quick paced and actuate opening spell from Madrid.

Intellectuals lost Tanveer at 22 and shortly after came one of the 2 unfortunate run-outs of the afternoon for the home side, as T. Keeling was run out.

Intellectuals settled with opener Rahul and Sanson battling at the wicket for the next 12 overs until Rahul was caught off Bancroft for 44.

Unfortunately, Sanson picked up an injury and brought on a runner, this led to the confusion leading to next run-out as Danny Butcher, and suddenly the game looked to be going Madrid’s way.

Skipper Neil came out fighting and hit a 6 off the first ball, and picked 23 quick runs, until he was caught on the boundary by Ashna.

After that the Intellectuals run rate was never really quick enough to catch Madrid, with Chris Horne battling once again til the end 2 games running.

Intellectuals finished 137 all out off 36.3 overs. Madrid won the game by 57 runs.

In the end 10 men in the field couldn’t beat the league leaders but the lads at the intellectual were proud of their fighting performance.